Preserving, enjoying, and riding three speed hub-geared bicycles.

Toei three speed

A visit to Velo Cult is always enjoyable. Besides getting bicycle work done whilst quaffing a brew, I get to see some interesting bikes. And here’s an interesting one, for sure. I was introduced to it by Sky, the owner, who said, “I bet you sensed it here.”

And yep, it’s a three speed! But it’s not a three speed you may have ever seen before. It’s built on a Toei frame, which is supposedly a modern Japanese frameset (with canti brakes, even!) And the bike has been built with a mixture of vintage British and English parts, with of course a Sturmey-Archer AW hub! My favorite part is the porteur bag, a French “La Poste” mailbag. (I couldn’t get a better shot because of those folks to the right who were busily installing a front brake to their fixie.)

The bike is owned by one of the regulars to the shop. Supposedly it just sits in this dude’s basement with all his other vintage bikes. Sacrilege!

UPDATE! Apparently the owner of this bike goes by the name “Spoke Sniffer”. A full set of photos of the bike during/after the build process can be found here.